Can the culture in Pakistan’s construction industry intrinsically motivate project leadership to make green decisions? The managerial approach to improve construction projects environmental sustainability performance in Pakistan

Abstract

Land is one of the prime natural resources required by both the construction industry and agriculture sector. Unfortunately, the recent growth of construction industry in Punjab, Pakistan has been on green agricultural land instead of brown land; resulting in resource conflict with agriculture sector which may lead to food insecurity in the future. Although the growth of construction industry is beneficial to address Pakistan’s economy woes, it should not come at the cost of agriculture sector which is equally important for future sustainability. With an aim to look into a managerial approach to resolving this conflict; this study will examine how decision making in construction projects can be influenced to become green so that project performance is improved to be environmentally sustainable. Organization culture has been hypothesized in this study to be a fundamental contextual factor that can intrinsically motivate project leadership to make green decisions which will lead to environmental sustainability performance. This is the first study of its kind focusing leadership initiated environment and natural resource conservation in a developing country like Pakistan. The hypothesized framework based on self-determination theory has been confirmed using a cross-sectional quantitative analysis that includes leadership in construction projects as a unit of analysis. The findings not only fill the literature gap related to relationships between organizational culture, intrinsic motivation, green decision making and environmental sustainability performance but also broaden horizon on sustainable development in Pakistan. Future research can focus on how to change culture in Pakistan’s construction industry from profit maximization to the culture inhibiting values for green sustainable development.